White House

The excited word went out late Thursday afternoon that President Trump was going to do an evening ridealong with the National Guard. According to Twitter, he was now officially the roughest dude to occupy the White House since Teddy Roosevelt. Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when the Trump gets you? Fight fight fight! At the height of rush hour, POTUS climbed into “The Beast,” the Presidential limo, in a motorcade that included chief of staff Susie Wiles, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, most-hated-man-in-America Steven Miller, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, among others. This was going to be one hell of a ridealong. At 5:32 pm, Trump arrived at U.S.

When President Trump said in July that he planned to host a Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn next year as part of the U.S.A.’s 250th birthday celebrations, people dismissed it as a typical piece of hyperbole and bluster. “We have a lot of land there,” Trump said, which is somewhat true, but that doesn’t mean that you can plop down an Octagon, right? Well, as it turns out, that’s exactly what it means. Trump is like that boy in the old Twilight Zone episode. Whatever he wishes, comes true. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, UFC boss Dana White, one of Trump’s biggest supporters, said that the UFC 250th anniversary (of the U.S.) is definitely going to happen. “Fighters will be warming up in the White House,” White said.

Donald Trump's press conference announcing a federal takeover of Washington, DC's police force was packed to the gills with White House reporters – many of whom live in DC and the surrounding area, and are more than familiar with the degradation of law and order in the region. But just because they know it's bad doesn't mean they want to give Trump any credit for trying to clean up the city – in fact, they're likely to attack the move from both sides. The ramifications of Trump's takeover, under Section 740's emergency rule, will have undetermined ripple effects in the capital city, but the initial reaction to it illustrates the difficult position in which it puts the president's critics.

The President needed One Big, Beautiful Vote in the Senate to move forward with his One Big, Beautiful Bill. It was a close call. This afternoon senators voted 50-50 to pass the act which will solidify Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, increase child tax credits, reduce Medicaid spending – to name a few of policies in the 940-page proposal. Vice President J.D. Vance acted as the tie-breaker, passing the bill and sending it back to the House of Representatives, where it also passed by just one vote back in May. Trump, unsurprisingly, is delighted. “MAGA VICTORY,” tweeted the White House just minutes after the bill had been passed. In many ways, the knife-edge victories have boosted the President’s agenda.

It was around 3 p.m. last Tuesday when I’d finally heard enough. Karoline Leavitt, for the love of your movement, stop bringing podcasters and influencers into the White House briefings. It’s not good for anyone, not the administration, not for conservative nor new media, and it’s certainly not good for all the righteous goals that got Trump elected in the first place. Take TikTok’s Link Lauren, aka “MAGA Malfoy,” who had the opportunity so few get to ask Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt a question in person at the White House.

When Karoline Leavitt, the buxom blonde 27-year-old White House press secretary landed the gig, not everybody was convinced. Scott Jennings, the Bush speechwriter turned TV star, had the resume. Megyn Kelly had the fire. But Leavitt? She was a gamble, at best. But Donald Trump wasn’t concerned about her youth and inexperience. “When I was 21, I was building buildings in Manhattan,” he told her. “I believe you can have this job.” He has been vindicated. Since taking the podium, Leavitt has quieted some of her detractors with a performance that’s part combat sport, part masterclass in messaging. Like her boss, she is combative and spunky. Sometimes she mocks the legacy news reporters she feels are asking particularly bad questions.

To be fair, Donald Trump’s team did promise to have the most transparent administration ever – a line I was planning to deploy on Fox News, but Peter Doocy beat me to it. Newly elected Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, was blunter: “Well, somebody fucked up.” It was only a matter of time before this White House, moving as fast as they have been, would make a glaring mistake. They had been relatively fortunate to this point, considering the sheer amount they’ve taken on in the early days of this administration, to have the screw-ups largely at a remove from the West Wing.

So, rest in power, Black Lives Matter Plaza. Mayor Muriel Bowser has at last caved to Republican pressure and is overseeing the renovation of the stretch of Washington's 16th Street NW leading up to the White House ahead of the US's 250th anniversary next year. Demolition of the plaza began Monday near Lafayette Square, where BLM protesters were cleared using tear gas in June 2020, and in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, where an arsonist started a fire in the basement during the protest. These events sparked Bowser’s decision to create a permanent plaza there in solidarity with their cause — protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis a week earlier — and in resistance to then-President Donald Trump.

It wasn’t easy being a Trump administration staffer in January 2021 as the flock of political appointees were left with a difficult decision to make. They could stay loyal to the president despite the establishment outcry over his repeated claims of massive electoral fraud in the 2020 election and the events of the January 6 Capitol riot. This came at a huge risk, as multiple former Trump staffers over the years have described to me the difficulties of finding a job outside of Trumpworld at that time. Some opted to continue to work for the president in the hope that his political brand would recover — a gamble that would eventually pay off.

President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were all smiles at the White House on Wednesday as the two met to discuss efforts to transition to a new presidential administration. The duo appeared in front of reporters this afternoon as Biden emphatically shook Trump’s hand and congratulated him on his victory before promising a “smooth transition.“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated with what you need,” Biden said. “We’re going to get to talk about some of that today.”  “Thank you very much. Politics is tough and is in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today,” Trump replied. “I very much appreciate it.

Hurricane Debby is barreling through Florida, America's economy is crashing, US troops were injured in Iraq Monday and conflict in the Middle East is on the brink of a dangerous escalation — sounds like the perfect time to ban the use of plastic cutlery, right?!  Instead of addressing the multiple crises the nation is currently grappling with, the Biden administration decided it was time federal government workers stopped using plastic forks. The Biden administration announced it is launching a plan to "phase out" the "procurement of single-use plastics from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035," according to the White House.